Double The Hate...

It is not often that I am standing in the kitchen, watching CNN while reading some of your emails and all of the sudden am struck into a state of total, silent rage.  But that is just what happened earlier yesterday as I watched David Benham, and to a lesser extent, his brother Jason Benham explain to viewers that were not upset at the HGTV network for dropping them like nuclear waste after their far right wing views came to be common knowledge. They instead blamed the "Gay Agenda" (I hate those words, what does that even mean?) for forcing the good folks at this corporation to "part ways" with the twins.  As someone that has "parted ways" with employers a few times, I can tell you those words mean one thing....You Are Fired.

First a little history, this is going to be a Cliff Notes version because it's 3 am and I have been reading about these Bobbsey Twins all night and I am so over them.  I have often spoken of Flip Benham.  He is the leader of Operation Save America, which, among other things, has tried to shutdown every abortion clinic it has even set its sites on.  During Bill Clinton's re election campaign in 1996 your very own Boy About Town volunteered with NOW and was stationed in Little Rock, Arkansas where Flip had set up camp to beat the drum of ending a woman's  right to choose. And during that time I got to see up close how truly hateful that man is.  But this is not his story. It is a story of his twin sons. Children that were raised in a enivorment that allowed or even encouraged calling people names like faggot, or Little Miss Fruit...that was Flip's special name for me (kinda makes ya wonder about him, huh)?! So as these kids grow up they follow Daddies dogma right down the line. They also build a booming real estate business that made them a force to be reckoned with in North Carolina. They built their brand, very well I might add.  They have a natural charm that comes through, maybe one of the twins more so then the other, but whatever.
At the same time as they were working hard to become the Donald Trumps of the South they went right along believing some of Daddies right wing, nut bag jabbering.  And these high profile men, these guys that were working hard to make sure their brand of real estate dealing was going places, well these same men were plain stupid in how they handled themselves in public.  In 2004 the dynamic duo asked the City of Charlotte to deny a permit to the city's annual Gay Pride Event.  With David, of course it was David, stating that the parade’s “filth” and “destructive,” “vile” activity “should not be allowed in our city."
In an interview from August 2012 our favorite alpha twin stated that Islam is a “demonic agenda that wants to come and take America."  There he goes again with this whole agenda talk.
And never one to shy away from the camera, David Benham, both organized & led a  prayer rally in his hometown of Charlotte, right on the steps of the Democratic National Convention in 2012, can anyone say photo op?!  During this PR bonanza Mr David shared with conservative radio host Janet Mefferd what he felt was the need to stop “homosexuality and its agenda that is attacking the nation” and “demonic ideologies tak[ing] our universities and our public school systems”

Ok so you get the point...there are many, many more cases of theses 2 jumping in front of any and every camera, microphone & local paperboy to get some coverage, I for one am not judging that in the least.  But I myself have learned, sometimes painfully is that you can not put your past into a little box and tuck it away from the world. Not in this age of the Internet. Becareful of the fame you seek today because you can not turn it off in the future. And when your "fame" is from such a hate filled place you a truly playing with fire.
Now keeping all that in mind, you would have to be a fool to believe that the folks at HGTV were not aware of the mess they signing to a contract.  Did they really think that somehow this would all be missed by...well by everyone?!  If these pushers of a FAR, FAR right wing agenda, I am starting to like that word angenda, can land a TV deal, start filming, start promotions and BAM the truth comes out, well kids, Boy About Town's talk show is a sure thing. Hello HGTV!!!! Over here! You want my agents number, cause even through I have a ton of baggage I can easily pass your test for TV readiness!
So while our twins sat on cable TV, not their own show but someone else's, they asked the world to believe that the Gay Agenda is to blame for their troubles.  To both of you boys, the strong one that talks a lot and the one that looks like he didn't get enough oxygen at birth, I say....you can only blame your pretty little selves. Boy steps off soap box and walks away into the crowd.......
Stay Fabulous
Boy About Town

Overincarceration-America's Prison Population

730 people out of every 100,000 are locked up in the U. S. It has been reported that “no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of it’s own citizens”

With in keeping with the vain of laying Boy About Town’s most personal moments bare for all the world to see I want to pose the question “Why are America's Prisons reaching the popping point?” Given my state sponsored vacay that just ended I would like to touch on some facts of life behind the fence as well as the struggle to re-enter the free world. Now I am aware that many of you are saying people in prison are there for a reason & they deserve everything they get, and while I too believe if you break the law that there should be a price to pay but at some point life has to move on. I did break the law & I paid my price. What I want to talk about is how we figure the price to be paid, what happens while paying that price and at what point the tab is paid. This is not my story but I will draw on some of my own experiences to drive home a point, and we all know how much I enjoy doing that!

With that said the question needs to be asked “are we sending people to prison for crimes which may not warrant such an extreme punishment?” The Justice Dept. said in it’s annual report for the year 2012, that that public safety can be maximized without maximizing prison spending. While the Justice Dept was mainly speaking to the fact that the budget for the federal prison system is a shocking $6.2 billion per year the same train of thought can be applied to the over crowded state prison system. Ask yourself do you think it makes sense to send someone to a state prison for driving without a valid license? Even if someone has a record of driving without one do you, as a tax paying citizen of your state, want to pay for an inmate to “learn his lesson” while doing hard time in a dorm setting with murders? It cost, on average, $31,000 per year to keep an average inmate. That's average, meaning no big health crisis or sudden change in mental state. On the flip side we spend just $6000 per year to educate the average child in America. I firmly believe if those figures were reversed the number of people “needing” to be locked up would grow much smaller very quickly! In places like Broward County Florida, which has the largest sheriffs dept in the United States, the rate of prosecution had gotten so outta hand that during his swearing in newly elected Scott J. Israel stated that he wanted his term as sheriff to be judged not by how many people Broward County locked up but rather how many people they kept out of jail & prison. It remains to be seen if this rare outlook on crime fighting will catch on in both in Florida as well as the rest of the country but what is clear is that police forces can not continue to arrest people for every minor offence & the states attorney offices can not file charges on every piece of paper that crosses their desk! In short..... A post-it is not an indictment!

There's a new sheriff in town, Scott J Israel.

There are crimes that truly cry out for a prison term. The length of those terms is at times decided by a judge or a jury or as is becoming the case more often, sentencing guidelines. These guidelines fail to take into account all the human factors that come in to play, such as age, either at the time of the crime or at sentencing,the effects a prison term would have on the either the family of victim (if there is one) or the family of the person being sent up the river. But people do end up in prisons everyday, all over this great land of ours. The purpose of that prison term is to keep the inmate away from society. The correction officers are not judge nor jury. Their job is to make sure no harm comes to any inmate as well as make sure that everyone is where they are supposed to be at any given time. For some reason this simply task seems to go to the head of a great number of these “professial C.O.’s” They use the position to abuse, mistreat & at times harm the very people they are supposed to be guarding. And we have all heard of prisoners have wine, cellphones & drugs at their beck & call. It’s all true & let me tell you folks folks, 99 percent of all of those things come in through the officers. They are making a small fortune in cash by walk these items right in the front door & hand delivering them to an inmate. Your tax dollars at work! There are also those that seem to get a sick kick outta the power position they find themselves in. They LOVE to call the the inmates names. If your Black they will call you nigger. Gay? You’re a punk. If you are of Latin descent then your are “Mexico”…even if your from Cuba. Clearly these tend not to be the smartest people working within the prison system. At Dade Correctional Institution where I was there were 2 such hot messes. Sgt Humphries & Ofc Forbes. Miss Humphries had a way of speaking to you that made it clear her education level peaked somewhere around 7^th grade. She had been moved from one end of the prison to the other due to the fact that she LOVED to threaten inmates with violence & fellow Dept of Correction employees with getting them fired. The administration staff dealt with this problem by giving her a promotion & moving her yet again…letsomeone else deal with her was the rule of thumb. Ofc Forbes spent his time explaining his world views to people. He was known to pull Gay inmates out of religions services to tell them that they were going to end up in hell. This fine, upstanding example of your tax dollars at work was treated with disdain by many staff, yet never reprimanded.  I left several messages for Warden Jerry Cummings & for some reason none of my calls were returned? Funny that. But in trying one more time I got a hold of Captain Thomas.  I think that was his name, hard to tell as he was in the middle of a meal the seems to have required a lot of smacking of his lips.  He seemed less then excited to chat about the misdeeds of his fellow officers.

As ones time in prison draws to a close, it never comes fast enough. But there is a great deal of work that goes into getting a person ready for release back into "the free world" and more often then not that work is not done. So for those of you that believe that there are programs that help inmates prepare to enter the workforce after they leave prison let at me explain something to you.....it's all a bunch of state funded manipulation.  Prime example is the "re-entry" program at our troubled Dade Correctional Institution.  What is supposed to happen is that in your last few months in prison the inmate is supposed to go to a class a few times a week that covers everything from job interview skills,

opening a bank account & budgeting to health lessons. In offering these classes the prison gets a grant from the Federal government.  In other words, more of your tax dollars. But really happens is you are handed the work book for the class and are told to complete it yourself.  Thats it.  Nobody checks it. There is no one you can ask questions of.  The only thing that is the same is that the grant is paid to the prison for offering the class, which, to recap, they do NOT do.
Lets bottom line it people. The system is broken, on that we can agree.  But what can we do to fix the problem? Why don't we redirect some of our money from uncaring, unmotivated staff & the programs that don't exists except on paper to hiring people that know what they are doing as well have enough sense to do it & funding programs that work to ensure that the number of people returning to prison is lowered.  Seems to make sense I to me.....
Stay Fabulous!
Boy About Town 
Watch for our upcoming posting on the business of porn

What Happened To House

DJ Jeffrey Jacobs

DJ Scott Mann

Once upon a time there was a magic world called Circuit. And in this world boys & girls, but mainly boys, gathered in cities around the globe to dance in great big groups at parties where they would spend the weekend enjoying the local culture, amazing music & each others ummm, company!? The driving force behind all this merry making was House Music. The sound of House came out of the clubs in New York & Chicago. It tends to be upbeat, vocal music that lends itself to a tribal feel amongst its fans both on the dance floor & off. In this ongoing series “What Happened To House” we will be looking into the state of the dance scene in different cities. And Boy About Town will be doing tireless research for you, my fabulous readers. I will be chatting with the hottest DJ’s, hitting the hottest clubs & some of the not so famous ones to find out where we are and where we are heading as we take to the dance floor! Our first stop is a nod to my summer spent in South Florida as we check out Miami’s famed nightlife as well as Ft Lauderdale’s quiet, yet very fierce attempt to become the king of the south! 
me set the scene, the tiny dance floor is packed with big hairy muscle men, a few leather Daddies & their boys (some Daddies are hunting for a boy or two but that is for my other blog) & girls that have packed themselves into Ramrod in Wilton Manors, Florida. Located just down “The Strip” as the Wilton Manor Dr is known to everyone in the know. This tiny bar bills itself as a Leather & Levi bar. And it is, where else could you buy a Bud Lite in a can and a 12 inch dildo all at the same place? But tonight the crowd is focused on the tiny DJ booth located just inches above the dance floor. In that booth , while not greeting his many friends & followers, DJ Jeffrey Jacobs takes the crowd on a trip with many peeks & valleys as he reads this group of hardcore music

fans. DJ Jeffrey Jacobs who hails from NYC came to SoFla (South Florida) about 10 years ago with a simple mission….bring the action! Well mission accomplished! You see while Ft Lauderdale has the largest Gay population percapata in the USA and a very upwardly mobile straight group as well there are very few true dance clubs. And those that try fail in spectacular fashion. So DJ Jeffrey Jacobs and his fellow Leather DJ’s , Scott Mann & Herbie James, countine to be the DJ’s that saved our lives in a tiny bar right off “The Strip”. Make sure to watch for DJ Jeffrey Jacobs on an upcoming segment of “In Bed With Boy”! Do you all see the lengths I am willing to go for you? Something that Ft Lauderdale has made big inroads into is the afterhours scene which at one time belonged solely to it’s neighbor to the south Miami Beach. Torpedo Afterhours offers a mix of all genres. While a bit off the beaten path it is the only game in town & worth the trip. But people, take a cab if you’re even thinking of partying hard because it is located right next door to a police station. And Broward County is no place to run afoul of the law.



DJ David-Tort

About 10 or 15 years ago South Beach was THE place to go if you wanted to sun yourself during the day & dance to big name DJ’s in super huge venues. Well sweet readers those days are behind SoBe. Now the clubs are packed with a weird combo of Jersey Shore wannabe’s & teenage rappers that still live with Mommy and work at Blockbuster. So Downtown Miami, once a dead zone, has stepped into the void with surpising results.  has given birth to great art galleries, shops, café’s & yes nightclubs! Most famous among them is Space. I remember when Space open way back in the late 90’s and my group of party friends & myself dragged ourselves across the Bay to the party that kicked it all off! We being SoBe boys & girls gave the place 6 months tops (it is worth keeping in mind that most of us worked in clubs on the South Beach, Boy at Liquid, Justin at Score & Robin whenever she could pick up work) Well many years later Space in all it’s hugeness is still there & if the night I went is anything to judge by it is doing fine! There are 2 dance floors with enough room on each to play a game of football. And an outdoor area that while it does have music the vibe is much more chill. The crowd had plenty of the clueless, messy when partying crowd but there was also a lot of fun loving, crowd hopping party people that made one remember the glory days of house. The DJ that saved Boy’s life that night was David-Tort. He read the crowd like a dirty paperback romance novel & then like a true man left me wanting more! I swear I needed a cigeratte after his set. The hours of Space go hella later then most any other clubs in SoFla so make sure to bring your sunglasses for when you stumble out into the blinding Florida sun in the morning.

While House Music is no longer the celebration of life, love & diversity it once was these mix masters are leading the tribe back to solid ground & we should all keep our eyes on them…and it is not because they are all very hot men! Well maybe it is a little! So next time we visit the majic land of circuit it will be a bit more…well fabulous! In the meantime boys & girls play nice!  And if you have been enjoying the background music for this posting...no folks it's not all in your head...visit the Mix Master himself DJ Jeffrey Jacobs.

Stay Fabulous!
Boy About Town
 

Bullying On The Bus

By now everyone has heard some heart wrenching story of childhood bullying. Some kid that for whatever reason does not fit in with his or her “peers”. Maybe it’s that they are “geeks” or “goths“ or it is thought that they might be Gay. Sometimes those stories play out in dramatic fashion like they did in Littleton at the now famous Columbine High School. Or in California, where Larry King, was gunned down by a fellow teen for giving him a Valentine's Day card. These CNN worthy stories are without a doubt awful but rarely, if ever, focus on what the far reaching effects of bullying have on the people that endure it.

Your very own Boy About Town went through this hell all during high school, which should shock nobody that has ever met me. I don’t fit into any of those groups that define high school life. Hell I still am a square peg in a world of round holes, that did not sound so dirty in my head…anywho! What many of you do not know is that I too grew up in Littleton, Colorado just a few short miles away from where 2 young men gunned down helpless students in the middle of the school day. And while I in no way condone or agree with what happened that day I do understand the environment that lead to feeling so hurt & alone that those 2 young men struck out at those that they thought had wronged them. At my school, Arapahoe High, the issue of being different was a non-issue. It did not happen. At school we had about 2000 plus kids running around this lily white suburb of Denver trying their hardest to NOT stand out in any way. And I played along. I DID TOO! I wore the right clothes, my family lived & (and still does) in a very respectable upper middle class neighborhood and I played the right sports. Not well, but I did play. But even then my inner diva was starting to shine though. And this was where trouble started. There were 3 main guys that wet outta their way to make my life a living hell. Allan Blood, Chris Weed & Tom Wilson. These 3 caused so much pain & drama in my household that 20 years later I have still not spoken to my Mother or Father. Crank calling the house, egging the house and the teasing in the hallways! It was outta of control. Last heard Allan Blood was in Africa spreading the book of Mormon & doing his best to ensure that we have lots of new little closed minded morons running around. Chris Weed was living up to his last name & was bouncing from one dead end job to another. And Tom Wilson was living with his BOYFRIEND in Denver. Come on folks, there had to be at least one in the group. Yes these are their real names & please boys threatened to sue, please I could use the press! After leaving school & Littleton behind and never returning for more then minutes at a time I truly thought I had left all that in my rear view! I went to school in Chicago & London. Partied my 20’s away with everyone who was anyone on South Beach. And now, after wrestling my demons, have returned to my life in Hollywood where while not at the top of the heap I am a player. Everything is golden. And then I met a little girl.

 

My friends Jessica & Jay have a 8 year old daughter that we are going to call Lady M. Lady M is many things but calm & quite are not on that list. Now a lot of you will say she is an active child & that is normal. True, it is. But at a certain point there becomes a difference between active & performing. I know the difference, I never pay attention to it myself but I do know it! When I first heard about her I thought ADHD! Then one day on the phone her Mom told me that Lady M had not gotten on the school bus in years. Ummm, what now?! It seems that while in the first grade & on the bus Lady M had been the subject of many hurtful, cruel, child like verbal attacks. Kids will be kids, right? Well Mom Jessica pulled her little girl off the big yellow bus & became Lady M’s driver. That was till the other day when The Lady boarded the bus and rode all the way to school sans any bullying! You see the same people that had chased Lady M off the bus years earlier were now her friends. Ahhhh, kids being kids. But I think our Lady M launched a charm offensive that proved she was not going anywhere & she was not a girl to mess with. Enter her inner diva! Now all of the sudden this loud, little girl had a special place in my heart. You see, Lady M and Boy About Town went the same route, granted she is a bit ahead of the curve! We have both said never again. I am different & damn it works well for me! But there are many people that can not get past the fact that at one time, whenever it was, they did not fit in. That awful feeling will creep in to their thoughts and make them second guess themselves. It can lead to addiction issues, acting out sexually and either over achieving in everything one does or floating through life with no sense of purpose. The pain goes on but how one deals with it is the true test.

Boy About Town & Lady M

Stay Fabulous!
Boy About Town

Sounds Like Love To Me!

We have all seen the late night rerun of "Ozzie & Harriet" or "Leave It To Beaver".  The American family as seen in the golden age of TV.  Dad off to work each morning as Mom packs up the kids for another day of school in which some trouble along the lines of a bad haircut will get everyone worked up. But don't worry folks Wally's crazy hairdo will be back to normal within a half an hour.  But now-a-days a snap of our American clan looks more like a "United Colors of Benetton" ad than those old, yet fabulous reruns.  So Boy About Town has chatted with 3 families of our modern world....by that I mean I bummed rushed them and asked a bunch of really personal questions!


In 1967 the United States Supreme Court heard the case "Loving vs. Virginia".   The short version of the story is this ruling at long last lifted the long standing law which made it illegal for 2 people of different races to marry.  This was 46 years ago!  That is not a long time .  My friend Carrie is an outgoing, fun loving Southern California Gal that is 31 yrs old (sorry Carrie)!  To meet her you would have no idea that her family is STILL at war with it's self over this court ruling, You see her Mother, Sue,  is White & her Father, Frank , is Black.  No biggie right? Wrong!  Her Maternal Grandmother is still so upset by this that she does not acknowledge the fact that Carrie's Father is Black.  She will not even speak his name.   But Carrie & her sister are the "apple of their Grandma's eye".  Makes no sense, right?  So how does Carrie deal with the odd vibe at holidays? Pretend it is not there & waits for things to blow over.  Sounds like love to me.

Some people try to have a family the "natural way".  Enter Ginger & Rich,  Ginger was my "girlfriend" when we were in middle school in rural Pennsylvania.  After the heartbreak of losing "Boy About Town" to another boy, Ginger settled on the love of her life Rich, got married & started right away on trying to make babies....SEX.  They had lots of sex.  But nothing.  Now image knowing you were meant to be a Mother.  Imagine it was your life's dream.  But you cannot produce.  Who's fault is it?  How do we fix it?  So after several doctor visits & even more tests they started trying the not so natural way.  First it was Intrauterine Insemination, also known as IUI. This including non-stop shots & "mating" according to one's body temperature.  After four failed attempts there, they moved onto the more invasive & more costly IVF (In Vitro Fertilization).  After $15,000, which is on the low side of the scale, and years of pressure & stress Ginger & Rich (Boy's replacement) had not 1 but 2 lovely babies.  A boy & girl (proudly pictured above, this is what $15,000. looks like).  Ginger informs me in very clear terms she is done.  No more. But she also made it very clear that she was meant to be a Mom and if this had not worked then she would have done something, anything else to be a Mom.  Sounds like love to me!

Quick fun fact, there are 401,000 kids in foster care in the United States, of those children with no home & no family fit to take care of them, 72% are minority kids.  By this I mean they are not white, heathly, english speaking kids.  This is my definition nobody elses. These children can drift from foster home to foster home for years until they "age out"of the system, which is what happened to Boy About Town but that is a different posting.  Some of the kids get lucky and find a great nurturing foster family that they stay with.  And if you are Zachary, not only are you amazingly cute, but you are placed with Frank & John Duffy! (Please note I have not used anyone's last name until now but John Duffy just has a ring to it, and shy he ain't....just saying)  John Duffy & Frank opened their home in Wilton Manors, Florida to a wee little baby that needed a home.  At the time these two stable, kind, wonderful men had to pretend to be "roomies" due to Florida's rule of not allowing Gay couples to adopt, which was their goal in fostering.  At the time Frank was learning how to heat a bottle and John Duffy found a stroller that matched his shoe's, Florida decieded to make a leap into to 1980's and allow Gays to openly adopt. This epiphany came in September of 2010, which was only 3 years ago.. Frank and John Duffy, not being 100 percent sure of the Florida government and its shifting laws,  fools they are not, still kept the "roomie" thing going until such time as the ink was dry on the papers! Mission accomplished! Family formed.  I am pleased to say that little Zachary, who by the way has a very cool trampoline in his bedroom, is a funny, outgoing, shockingly smart kid of 3 years old that Boy About Town thinks will one day run a major network like CNN, NBC or CBS.....Remember kid Boy About Town loves ya!  Today John Duffy (told ya it has a ring to it) and Frank happily rearranged thier lives around a 2 foot tall CEO in training in the Gayest town in America.  Life moves on at a crazy, yet fabulous pace.  Sounds like love to me!

So, these 3 families are not the families of American yesteryear, they are America's families today. They are America's furture.  They all deal with their stories in different ways, but they deal with them.   Each of these families are based on love....
Stay Fabulous! Boy About Town
Boy is pictured above with THE Zachary with his 2 Dad's John Duffy & Frank.

We Are Working On Our Launch...No Really We Are!

• So, as we move closer to the launch date of Red Carpet Refugees the whole team is plugging away to get everything ready.  Erik is starting to take questions for his advice column titled, what else, "ASK ERIK!"  Boy About Town has began researching his first piece which will tackle a subject close to home as well as filmed 2 interviews which will fall under our "Neighborhood Notables" segment. The PR dream team in LA is dealing with how best to handle both Boy & Erik and that is no easy task. And Uncle Joe, our cameraman, has learned how to turn the camera on.....hey people don't judge!  The clock ticks away & we promise that Red Carpet Refugees will not let you down!